Pages

Thursday, November 8

One Launch or Six?

Starting next week, I get to
live the dream. As a debut author, my first novel, The Fifth Knight, will be
published by Thomas & Mercer. Exciting times, and something I’ve worked
towards for a decade.

It’s a fairly typical story
of the road to publication- up to now. A completely, utterly and absolutely dreadful
first novel. One that was 150,000 words long. Or rather, 150,000 words too
long. The dawn of realization (despite a couple of partial requests from
agents) that Novel #1 had to be forever consigned to a box in the attic, its
back-up copy on a set of carefully labelled floppies. (Under 25? Look that one
up). Oh, and I did rewrite the whole thing along the way. Twice. It was still
awful.

But, hey,
Novel #2 would be the one! It started as Novel #1 had. No proper structure, a
lot of enthusiasm. Then I ran out of steam a third of the way in. I realized I
wasn’t a pantser, but a plotter. One outline and one complete rewrite later,
there it was. And at a modest 85,000 words. It attracted quite a few agent partial
requests and (one of the most exciting days of my life), a full. But it wasn’t
to be. The agent who requested the full sent me a lovely, personalised rejection,
giving me invaluable advice. By the time the rejection arrived, I was deep into
Novel #3: the novel which would become The Fifth Knight. The agent had asked me
to send her anything else I wrote. So I finished Novel #3 and off it went.
Still no.

More
re-writes, more submissions. Critique partners with immense patience and
wisdom. Entering contests, getting feedback. Judging contests and giving other
writers advice, then realizing I should be taking that advice myself. A
face-to-face pitch with yet another agent at the Historical Novel Society
conference in 2010. She requested a full. Still no dice. A contest win in 2011
that got another full request . Reading through my MS before I sent it off, I
realized that at least 30,000 words had to be rewritten. So I did.

I
finished re-writing in early 2012, ten whole years since I started this crazy
pursuit. Then, in a ridiculously short space of time, three offers of
representation. Josh Getzler of HSG was my choice. What can I say? He’s been a
tireless champion of The Fifth Knight, putting boundless energy into finding a
publisher for it. And what a find- Andy Bartlett of Thomas & Mercer.
Sometimes good things happen, eh?

But this
is where it ceases to become typical. Publication day on 13th
November next week isn’t a one-off. The Fifth Knight goes out first in
serialized format on Kindle Serials. It’s to be published in six episodes, each
two weeks apart. Readers will have it automatically sent to their Kindles for a
one-off purchase. There’ll be a link to Kindle Forums, a customer’s discussion
forum for the book on Amazon.com. That means I get to engage with readers as
the episodes go out, which is amazing.

Is this
scary? Yep. Looking at the Kindle Serials home page, you’ll see that readers
can get free serials of Oliver Twist and The Pickwick Papers. They were
originally published in serial format, so readers are being offered that
original experience. Erm, that would be Oliver Twist and The Pickwick Papers as
written by Charles Dickens. My link to my debut serialized novel will sit on
the same page. Told you it was scary.

So,
scary- yes. Typical? No. But it’s exciting. Exciting not only to be published,
but to be part of the changing landscape of how books are published and are
read. Ironically, The Fifth Knight is a medieval thriller, set nearly 300 years
before the invention of the printing press and over 800 years before the
Kindle. But I forgive Thomas & Mercer for not putting it out on
historically accurate vellum manuscript.

Like I said, they’re making my dream come true.

And if
you fancy an additional extra to the serial, check out the Fifth Knight Tales
page on my website. Here you’ll find stories of other characters that appear in
the novel. There’ll be one per episode. The first one is a taster of what’s to
come: the tale of The Red Cap.

Note:
The Fifth Knight can be found on Kindle Serials. At this time, only US customers can
purchase the serialized format. The book will be released in complete format by
Thomas & Mercer in 2013.

Sir Benedict Palmer returns to Germany on November 1 2016!

Facebook

Follow by Email

About Me

E.M. Powell’s medieval thrillers THE FIFTH KNIGHT and THE BLOOD OF THE FIFTH KNIGHT have been #1 Amazon bestsellers and a Bild bestseller in Germany. Book #3 in the series, THE LORD OF IRELAND, was published by Thomas & Mercer on April 5 2016. Born and raised in the Republic of Ireland into the family of Michael Collins (the legendary revolutionary and founder of the Irish Free State), she now lives in northwest England with her husband, daughter and a Facebook-friendly dog. She is also a contributing editor to International Thriller Writers The Big Thrill magazine, blogs for English Historical Fiction Authors, reviews fiction & non-fiction for the Historical Novel Society and is part of the HNS Social Media Team. Find out more by visiting www.empowell.com.